With more than 6 million copies sold in France, the Nintendo Switch dethrones the PS4, and is also about to overtake the Wii. It will then become the best-selling home console of all time in France.
The Nintendo Switch is on track to break a sales record in France. Asked by our colleagues from Figaro, Philippe Lavoué, general manager of Nintendo France, indicates that the hybrid console has sold 6.1 million copies in the country. It is now ahead of Sony’s PlayStation 4 (6 million units), and is only a stone’s throw from the Nintendo Wii (6.3 million) – which it will overtake during the course of the year, thanks to its dynamic sales still very strong.
Thus, after 1.4 million sales in 2020, then 1.3 million in 2021, Philippe Lavoué is aiming for 7 million consoles installed by the end of 2022 – or, if our calculation is correct, 900,000 machines. additional elapsed during the year. The 6.3 million Wii should even be exceeded “by spring”, according to Nintendo’s predictions. The Switch will then become the home console, if we consider it as such, the best-selling in the history of video games in France. On the other hand, considered from the angle of portable consoles, the story is not the same: the 12 million sales made by the Nintendo DS remain a record that is undoubtedly unattainable.
Xbox and PlayStation left behind, weighed down by the shortage
This performance of the Switch demonstrates this, especially to the next-generation consoles from Sony and Microsoft, whose combined efforts are not enough to match the figures revealed by Nintendo, if we are to believe the very knowledgeable Oscar Lemaire of the Ludostrie site. Its sources report 600,000 PS5 and 300,000 Xbox Series X / S sold in France in 2021. Remember, of course, that the sales of these machines are largely weighed down by the current shortage of semiconductors; they are therefore only indicative of the production capacities and allocation choices of each manufacturer, and not of consumer demand, which we know is much higher.
Nintendo’s console is also hit by this shortage, but to a lesser degree. While it is certainly difficult, at the time of writing, to find the Oled models of the Switch, the standard and Lite references are immediately available from almost all retailers.